The invention relates to a radar system for an aircraft for in use at least detecting another airborne objected within a region surrounding the aircraft.
Such a radar system is known and is used by military aircraft of an air force. The known radar system is capable of searching through a region that extends over a distance of up to 150 nautical miles from an aircraft using that system. The system is used to detect another aircraft as early as possible, not with the aim to avoid a collision, but rather to allow for determining as early as possible whether the detected aircraft is for instance a hostile aircraft that needs to be targeted or an aircraft that can be ignored. The transmitter of the known radar system is capable of transmitting strong signals which reach a long distance and are still detectable after reflection. An antenna of the transmitter may mechanically move, for instance rotate, so as to transmit a signal into all zones of interest by a scanning movement of the antenna. The transmitter may also be arranged to electronically scan all zones of interest without a physical rotation of the antenna itself. However, in both cases zones of interest are within a scan only temporarily addressed. Given the need to scan all the zones of interest, it takes some time to obtain information on the possible presence of another aircraft in the region surrounding the aircraft. This is usually longer than several seconds. As a consequence thereof the known system is for instance unable to replace direct visual inspection of a flight safety volume that surrounds a flying aircraft.
It is an objective of the invention to provide a radar system that is capable of providing feed-back to a pilot in a faster way than the way feed-back is provided by the above-described system of the prior art.